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Zenobia
| faction= | ageoftga= }} Zenobia is a cleric of Artemicia working under Confessor Unithien Earthhaven in the Fourth Age. Despite her piety, she has a dark past going back to the Second Great War. Biography Third Age Early Years Casualties of War Zenobia was born into a poor family in Remonton. Her father was a soldier and her mother was a prostitute, but the two had loved each other and stayed together even though neither could leave their professions. Zenobia's father fell in battle against dark elves, and her mother died giving birth to Zenobia. She ended up being raised by her older sister Dorecia who was not happy about her because she said that Zenobia had murdered her dear mother. However, Dorecia did raise Zenobia but began twisting her mind, hoping to make her a suitable candidate for the Clergy of Mardük. On the day when Dorecia would have taken Zenobia to the clerics of Mardük in the then-Confederacy of Remon, Zenobia found out that her sister had been brutally murdered in a brawl that had taken place in the Fool's Haven inn. The only thing that could be found out was that the attacker had carried something called the Emerald Blade. Zenobia had lost her only caretaker, but her sister's teachings had not been in vain: she did what she could to survive. She was young but managed to track down her sister's contacts. However, these contacts betrayed her and sold her to the Black Widow and the slave traders. Zenobia ended up in a brothel in Fragnar where various shady men molested her. This traumatic experience would go on for years and would gradually shape Zenobia's personality for the worse. The anti-elf movement began spreading in Fragnar and the surrounding countryside, but a heroic elven ranger named Mori'sul Agara soon appeared with a band of heroes and put an end to the movement as well as to the clerics of Mardük who had been behind it. This relative peace did not last for long, though, when the Yamatians invaded Remon and re-established the Clergy of Mardük to the area. Zenobia's life remained largely the same even though the world around her was changing, and she became a skilled flautist when a fellow prostitute taught her to play a flute. She was also encouraged to sing, and she often ended up entertaining the patrons with her angelic voice. She loved to watch artists perform on stage, and it was around this time that she became obsessed with music which helped her forget sexual assaults for a while. Agent of Chaos A few years passed, and in the later months of the year 1003 AE Remon was finally liberated from the Yamatian tyranny. While the forces of the Grand Alliance hurried to liberate Maar Sul before the Yamatian forces could regroup, a detachment was left behind to secure the Remonian countryside and liberate Fragnar. The Alliance forces were not successful at first, but when a mysterious and powerful mage who had been protecting the city suddenly disappeared, the city was overrun easily. The slave traders, clerics of Mardük and the remaining Yamatians were wiped out, and Zenobia and the other prostitutes appeared to be saved at last. However, it turned out that the liberators were not as benevolent as Zenobia had assumed. The soldiers of the Grand Alliance were hungry for spoils of war and for women because they had been without either for a long time while King Marcus Sarillius and the paladins had been around. The king was not around, and the soldiers immediately used the opportunity to brutally rape the prostitutes who they considered to be trash. During the gang rape Zenobia's already fragile mind finally snapped, and she suddenly unleashed powerful black magic upon her attackers and fellow prostitutes who were instantly torn into pieces. She was surprised that she had had hidden magical talents all along, but to her amazement she found the grisly scene oddly satisfying. She had an epiphany: since the world had been cruel to her, it was time for her to return the favour. She would combine music and chaos to create a symphony of destruction which she would spread around the world. The Great War continued abroad, but Zenobia concentrated on her small-scale war in Remon. She became obsessive and ripped apart every man who had ever molested her. However, her bloodlust did not end there as she began killing innocent bystanders as well. She used various ways, ranging from brutal beatings to deceit, to lure her prey in. She found herself alive when she was life pouring out of her helpless victims, and she came to view herself as an incarnation of Mardük. The killings would go on for through the Great War until the authorities of Fragnar finally caught Zenobia in the year 1 AOE after the Cataclysm. The authorities were surprised to find out that the devious serial killer was actually a teenager. They put her in prison so that she could be judged later. They eventually decided to execute her for her crimes even though she was young, and her sentence would be carried out in the following morning. However, Zenobia was saved on the night before the execution. The hooded man called himself Simon and told Zenobia that her powerful black magic had attracted him to her. Simon said that he wanted to hone her skills as he saw great potential in her. In exchange she would serve him and his Master in their quest to shake up the world's governments. Curious to learn more, Zenobia agreed to accompany Simon to a meeting place where he talked with the mysterious Master who introduced her to the Totenkopf death cult. Zenobia immediately realized that serving in such a cult would make her job easier and much more satisfying, and she accepted the offer to join the Totenkopfs in exchange for spreading chaos and destruction everywhere. Zenobia spent the next years growing up and learning to focus her black magic. During the ceremony of Jacob Seneron becoming the Master's next Blessed, a mysterious man suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the ceremony room and tried to steal the seer orb. The Totenkopfs were alarmed by this intruder and launched powerful magic at him. However, the intruder managed to escape, and Simon told Zenobia to remember the face of the intruder if she ever happened to meet him again. Godslayer Era The Age of Emptiness Zenobia was ordered to stay on guard near the docks of Ravensworth in the early months of the year 10 AOE. Her superiors in the cult had found out that a Maar Sulais count named Belial de Ardyn would be arriving at the docks soon, and they wanted someone to be around to watch the count's every move. However, Belial's ship seemed to come too early, and this forced Zenobia to improvise, although this was just an excuse for her to cause more havoc. She had overheard what Captain Adram Alek of the Ravensworth Watch had instructed his men to do if the mysterious ship turned out to be a pirate ship. When the captain rowed to the ship to meet with its crew, Zenobia realized she could use this uncertainty to her advantage. She informed the Totenkopf mole onboard the Maar Sulais ship to prepare a signal flare which would make the Ravensworth Watch assume that Captain Alek had been killed. Zenobia also cast a cloaking spell on herself and secretly manipulated a loyal watchman named Eric Stevenson to attack the ship as soon as he saw the signal. Everything went exactly as planned, and soon the flare could be seen. The Ravensworth Watch opened fire, and their cannons sank the ship. However, another ship appeared unexpectedly and saved the survivors, and a mysterious mage was preventing the Watch from using their arrows to kill the survivors and the rescuers. This unexpected turn of events made Zenobia angry, but before she could react properly, she was contacted by another Totenkopf member who ordered her to meet with Lord Cain who was the leading Totenkopf in the city. Zenobia was reluctant to leave the scene of chaos behind, but she followed her companion when she was threatened with punishment if she did not obey Cain's orders. She was not happy to hear that a Totenkopf named Gloriana would take over her job, because both women were ambitious and despised each other. Cain was not happy to hear that Zenobia had acted independently. The man hit her repeatedly and scolded her for almost killing the Progenitor who the Totenkopfs had been after. However, Zenobia would not receive more severe punishment for the time being because the Progenitor and some members from Belial's group had survived and a fish specimen infected with a variant of the Blood Fever had given the Totenkopfs interesting test results in the ensuing chaos. Cain would not want to deal with such a reckless acolyte as Zenobia, so he ordered her to teleport to Remonton where she would contact another high-ranking Totenkopf, Jacob Seneron, who would become her new master for the time being. Zenobia was not happy to leave Gloriana behind to take credit for her work, but she had no choice but to obey. Cain gave her a sealed scroll with orders from the Master and a mysterious sapphire talisman, and he reminded her of an old prophecy. As Zenobia was teleported away in a grisly ritual, her anger disappeared as she realized that she might be able to witness chaos in a grander scale in Remonton. On Death's Trail The teleport spell was a success, and Zenobia reached Jacob safely. She gave her the scroll and the talisman, and Jacob was pleased by this. He ordered Zenobia to inform his men in the city that the would set their plan in motion soon. Once she had done her job, she joined Jacob as they spied on a group of people who had just arrived at Remonton. Jacob informed her that he had a score to settle with some of those people such as Axikasha "Ax" Keiran, Marcus Sarillius and Shyralis. Zenobia did not bother to think about it too much; she did not care about Jacob's grudge, and she only wanted to see destruction on a grand scale. Zenobia was surprised to hear a chilly voice coming from the talisman, but Jacob quietened it immediately. Before she could question Jacob about the true purpose of the talisman, the man ordered her to come with him and get ready. He also promised her to kill as many people as she wanted assuming that the being in the talisman would leave anything left to destroy. Zenobia was impressed when she discovered that the talisman held an ice elemental within. She observed as Jacob appeared above the people of Remonton and released the terrible elemental which immediately began destroying buildings and killing people. Zenobia would have wanted to stay and watch the carnage, but Jacob had given her new orders. While the elemental rampaged through the city unchallenged, Zenobia appeared next to Mordecai and Desdemona de Ardyn who were Belial's nephew and niece. She and Jacob's minions captured them in the blink of an eye, and no one noticed anything as the elemental drew all attention to itself. It turned out that Jacob's true purpose of releasing the elemental was not just to settle the score with Ax, Marcus and the others but also to use the elemental's attack as a distraction to secure the Progenitor, Mordecai, so that the Totenkopfs could study him and figure out whether they could further evolve the deadly Blood Fever virus so that it would start infecting humans too and not just elves. Jacob, Zenobia and the other Totenkopfs fled from Remonton and headed for the Ruined Kingdom while the elemental continued its rampage. It did not matter whether the heroes could defeat the beast or not; the Totenkopfs had succeeded in their mission and were one step closer to their nefarious goal. Echoes of War Jacob and Zenobia would remain in hiding in the Ruined Kingdom for a year as they conducted experiments on Mordecai. They had little progress, but it was better than nothing. Their plans were interrupted when a small groups entered the temple within the ruined city: the first group consisted of people who had kidnapped King Marcus, and the other groups belonged to a few heroes who had come to rescue the king. Jacob knew what was going on and quickly informed Zenobia of the indentities of a few key individuals and that they possessed powerful swords that might be of use to the Totenkopfs. While some Totenkopfs distracted both the kidnappers and the rescuers, Zenobia caught one of the kidnappers, Xerathas d'Zarnagon, by surprise and stole his sword in the chaos. She was about to go after the other blades when Jacob ordered her to retreat with Xerathas's sword and take the Progenitor, Mordecai, to safety so that the heroes could not find him. Zenobia realized that arguing would not be of no use even though she wanted to kill people, so she obeyed her superior and teleported away. She knew she still had some work to do before she could leave the ruins behind, though. The heroes emerged victorious from the crumbling temple and quickly fled the ruins as strange shadow beasts began appearing there. Zenobia approached one specific shadow being known as the Shadow who almost killed her until she revealed that she had discovered another shadow who seemed to know the first shadow. It turned out that the small shadow had once been called Pooka and that he had been the brother of the long-dead Lord of the Andain, Taliesin, who was none other than the Shadow himself. Zenobia succeeded in manipulating the Shadow, Taliesin, to consider her proposal. She revealed that she had been instructed by the Master who wished to speak with Taliesin. The Shadow Taliesin accepted the offer when he heard that Zenobia and the other Totenkopfs could wipe out a geas that forced the Shadow to obey Xerathas and the Godslayer. The Shadow teleported to Xerathas's location when he heard the mage calling for him. Zenobia remained behind, happy that she could use such a powerful shade as Shadow Taliesin to spread even more chaos and destruction all around the world. The Winds of Wrath Zenobia later travelled to Vanna where Cain ordered her to make sure that important scrolls from Vanna's library would be destroyed. She immediately began her work and set off many magical bombs which burned many of the important scrolls about the Blood Fever and caused enough havoc so that her Totenkopf companions named Benedick and Beatrice could slip unnoticed into the citadel to assassinate Hannibal Losstarot whom the Grand Alliance heroes were keeping locked up. Zenobia took three camels and waited for her companions to return so that they could leave Vanna behind. Benedick and Beatrice were defeated, however, and instead two other figures showed up at the rendezvous point: the deposed Sultana Adela al-Saif and a man who introduced himself as Briss Phoenixheart. Although Zenobia was delighted to be able to take such an important guest as Adela to Trinity Gask, she was shocked when she saw Briss who looked exactly like the mysterious intruder who had once appeared in a Totenkopf hideout many years ago. Zenobia quickly hid her surprise, though, and led Briss and Adela out of the city. She was still uneasy about Briss and wonder why she had met this man after so many years had passed. Sowing Season Zenobia and Adela argued about whether to head for Trinity Gask or Alent during their long journey north. Briss chose to head for Trinity Gask, a sentiment which Zenobia agreed with. However, this made Zenobia even more cautious. She was already hard at work trying to figure out Briss's true motivations for going to Trinity Gask. More info later. The Point of No Return Zenobia led the captured demon bounty hunter Saleos out of Trinity Gask, given orders by Endoran L'Sarius to locate the missing Glaurung Losstarot. They intercepted with the Vulfsatz along the way, and the five disguised themselves as Libaterran merchants in order to move freely in Alent's territory while tracking down Glaurung and her kidnapper. The group ended up finding a huge army camp of Alliance soldiers and Sarquil refugees on the outskirts of Alent. They chose to enter the camp as merchants in order to find out what was going on and perhaps to find clues about Glaurung's current whereabouts. More info later. Fourth Age Interim Years After the fall of the Totenkopfs, Zenobia joined the ranks of the Clergy of Artemicia who were unaware of her past affiliations. Claiming to have seen the light and wanting to dedicate her life to Artemicia, Zenobia convinced the clergy to take her in. She became a diligent cleric and eventually began working with the new Confessor, Unithien Earthhaven as they made the clergy establish a foothold in the newly risen Kingdom of Zion. Herald of the Dawn Zenobia accompanied Confessor Unithien Earthhaven's party to the Imperial City in the Andarian Empire during the Empire's biggest celebration. She took note of a brave woman who stopped the Confessor from trampling two demon children who had stalled the Confessor's procession and witnessed the chilling confrontation between Unithien and Duchess Jahi Gallu. After Jahi and Unithien came to terms and retreated into one of the side rooms in the Imperial Palace to discuss the clergy's annual tribute to Andaria, Zenobia led the other Artemician priestesses to the Temple of the Unknown God where she passed by Amberley Cain's party. Appearance Zenobia has dyed her hair blue, but her curvy mouth is probably what most know her by. She often wears black and plain cloaks although she is not interested in wearing skull masks that most Totenkopfs use. She is quite slender and small, but despite her fragile appearance she can be quite deadly. Personality and Traits Zenobia is cruel. She likes music, and she often considers the havoc she has caused as art in its purest form. She likes to call things "symphonies of carnage," "odes of terror" and such. She also has a natural talent in music, and she is quite skilled in singing and playing the flute, which she has learned during her time as a prostitute. Although she is proud and intelligent, she also knows when to act humble so that she can lull others into a false sense of security. It is an essential skill in manipulation which she is so fond of. Powers and Abilities Zenobia possesses better-than-average black magic. She knows that she is far from powerful, but her intelligence easily overcomes the flaws in her magic. She is a master of manipulation and loves to make people fight one another. Relationships Briss Phoenixheart Zenobia's recent acquaintance, Briss, troubles her greatly. She swears that she remembers him from somewhere but can't pinpoint where. Although Briss looks like a powerful ally, Zenobia is cautious around him and observes him to learn more about him. Cain Highwind Zenobia is interested in Cain on more than one level. Although he is a handsome man, what intrigues Zenobia more is how he used to be a hero before he defected to the Totenkopfs. Zenobia loves to watch Cain manipulate his old friends, although she is not fond of the way he treats her as it reminds her of the abuse she had to deal with in her prostitute years. Cain has hardly any interest in Zenobia, however, as he only sees her as a disposable pawn who might or might not live to fight another day. Dorecia Dorecia always treated Zenobia cruelly, but Zenobia did not mind. Zenobia learned essential skills of survival from her, and in a way she wanted to grow up as powerful as her big sister. She was shocked to hear about Dorecia's death, because she had assumed that no one could beat her. It was partly the result of Dorecia's cruel manipulation that sow the seeds of Zenobia's eventual lust for blood. Gloriana Zenobia and Gloriana utterly hated each other. The exact reason was unclear, but it might stem from the fact that both women were beautiful and cunning and thus rivals. Zenobia was the more intelligent one of the two whereas Gloriana was stronger, and Gloriana did always try to steal Zenobia's glory for herself. When Zenobia was teleported to Remonton, she had other things to think of than Gloriana, which helped her focus on her tasks at hand. Gloriana's recent death will certainly be one of the happiest news she has heard all year. Jacob Seneron Zenobia considered Jacob to be an old geezer, but she did respect the determination that the man had. She was also impressed by Jacob's cunning, although she preferred a more covert approach in dealing with enemies. Nevertheless she did not miss him once he was killed by Ax in the Ruined Kingdom. As far as Zenobia sees it, Jacob was simply not skilled enough to fare against a group of determined heroes; a mistake which she will not repeat. Taliesin Zenobia had been tasked to keep track of the Shadow and wait for the Shadow's eventual recovery into Taliesin. When that happened, Zenobia immediately appeared and pulled the right strings by manipulating Shadow Taliesin with the appearance of Pooka's shadow. Shadow Taliesin also seemed to appreciate Zenobia on some level even though she was a mere human in his point of view, because he was impressed by her knowledge of the Laws of the Andain. See also *Dorecia *Totenkopfs *Unithien Earthhaven Category:Characters from Remon Category:Characters from Zion Category:Clergy of Artemicia Category:Fourth Age characters Category:Humans Category:Third Age characters Category:Totenkopfs